The 2023 Kia Dealer of the Year Awards encompass the period July 2022 to June 2023.

Proving that excellence across all aspects of business operations is critical to a business’s success, Dealer Principal, Kabelo Tlailane, and his team’s successes across sales, after-sales and service operations resulted in Kia The Glen, in the south of Johannesburg, outranking all-comers in this year’s awards.

“Kabelo and his team have proved over the 12 months over which the awards were determined that it is leadership in action that defines a successful business,” comments Gary Scott, CEO of Kia South Africa. “They have worked to shift standards in all aspects of their business, living up to the brand slogan, ‘Movement that inspires’.

“This has been a year of two halves, the first was characterised by global stock shortages and the second by weak market conditions,” Gary says. “Our dealer network has responded well to this changing dynamic, and a dealer conference gives us an opportunity to both reward excellence as well as to set out our stall for the 12 months ahead.”

In most categories, awards comprise a Bronze, Silver and Gold award while, in some award categories, this is further broken down by dealership size. For the 2023 awards, Kia has also consolidated many of its previous awards in order to best encapsulate that success must be achieved across all the various business elements to truly represent excellence.

After-sales Dealer of the Year Award, which considers a dealership’s performance across CSI, service operations, accessories sales, parts sales as well as training compliance and completion:

Gold Awards were presented to Kia The Glen, Kia Brackenfell, Kia Hermanus and Kia Paarl.

Silver Awards were presented to Kia Tygervalley, Kia Menlyn, Kia Empangeni and Kia Welkom.

Bronze Awards were presented to Kia Wonderboom, Kia Springfield, Kia George and Kia Queenstown.

In addition, Kia also presented a number of Inspiration Awards to individuals who have excelled in their respective roles within the after-sales space:

Service Advisor of the Year: Nokuphiwe Bawana of Kia Pietermaritzburg.

Service Manager of the Year: Terrence Moodley of Kia Pietermaritzburg.

Master Technician of the Year: Mark de Klerk of Kia Vryheid.

Parts Manager of the Year: Nervashin Padayachy of Kia The Glen.

Warranty Administrator of the Year: Sumendiran Naidoo of Kia Umhlanga.

For the Sales Dealer of the Year Award, dealerships were measured on their sales-to-target achievement for the year, volume sales by unit and other sales-related elements.

Gold Awards were presented to Kia Northcliff, Kia Menlyn and Kia Brits.

Silver Awards were presented to Kia The Glen, Kia Springs and Kia Empangeni.

Bronze Awards were presented to Kia Fourways and Kia Bryanston.

Fleet and Corporate Sales:

The winner for 2023 was Kia Northcliff.

Sales Executive of the Year awards:

Sandile Mdlovu of Kia eSwatini, Stuart King of Kia Hermanus, Mary Sekgobela of Kia Menlyn and Tumi Morokolo of Kia Hatfield.

Sales Manager of the Year awards:

Corita van den Berg of Kia Brits, Vusi Ngidi of Kia Menlyn, and Gavin Edwards of Kia Northcliff.